


and let it push me inside out

by JackyM



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: ....Unless?, Added content warnings in author's notes! There's a lot of them., Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Martin Blackwood, Bittersweet Ending, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, M/M, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5, Web Avatar Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27769684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyM/pseuds/JackyM
Summary: “It is, yes. Domains, like the entities, don’t have clear boundaries. Some...flow into each other, feeding off of what they have in common, but separate in how they manifest. And this domain is...tangled, with other ones. And once the Web becomes tangled with other domains, they all become harder to see. I wasn’t sure what our options were. Except that the place that was hardest to see amidst all of the murkiness--”“--had to be the Web. Right.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	and let it push me inside out

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, first up! Content warnings for this fic, because there's a lot of them that don't show up with AO3's tagging system. Not that I trust their tagging system, because I'm pretty sure that people aren't using it to keep people safe. 8,) Do let me know if I need to add more!
> 
> \- Arachnophobia  
> \- Implied/referenced child abuse  
> \- Loss of bodily control  
> \- Survivor's guilt  
> \- Guilt in general  
> \- Death of a sibling  
> \- Death of a parent  
> \- Blood/injuries  
> \- Feeling trapped/being forced down  
> \- Body horror
> 
> This is a fic I wanted to write for a while, so I'm glad I got it out! I know it's awfully hefty but I'm proud of it. Also also! I do want to make it clear that one of the messages of this fic is heavily contextual and is not meant as a general, sweeping statement. I think I sort of make it clear in this fic but I just want to buffer that with a statement up here. 
> 
> Title is from some lyrics from Jason Webley's I Made A Promise To The Moon! If I'm being honest WTNV Weathers just have a lot of good niche messages that also make for good titles fhhghg. Anyways look at the lyrics for this one, you'll see why I chose this line. ;3c

The building ahead of them was a dour sight. Whatever the building’s function could have been was nothing short of unclear. Its structure offered no indication of the purpose it served, let alone what resided inside of it. The outside of the building looked haphazardly slotted together, pieces of it jutting out independently of one another, a shamble of mortar and brick. It looked damp, cool to the touch, almost, but not in the way of a building that had been rained on. More so a building that had remained hidden, for an amount of time that even the years worn into the physicality of the building itself could not even begin to offer an estimate. 

From every sharp angle of the building, it was supported by thick, intricately woven ropes of spider silk, holding the building in place like a vice. The building seemed on the precipice of crumbling. Its tenuous structure made the building creak and shudder, but the threads of silk did not uproot themselves. They remained firmly placed in the ground, and seemed to pan out forever, stretching and reaching out and up into the murky darkness that wrapped itself around the derelict building.

Martin groaned, softly. “Oh, delightful. I wonder who might be in charge here.” 

“The Hunt, of course.” Jon felt his lips quirk into an insufferable smile, and Martin huffed a little laugh in response.

“Yeah, sure. Is this all it is?”

“All what is?”

“The Web. Is that all this place is? Or is it like you said, about how Smirke’s Fourteen is bull, and they can just bleed into each other? Is there some...giant spider made of human legs inside of here? Or, Christ, or another puppet show, but with...I don’t know, puppets with human eyes this time?”

Jon tilted his head. “I...I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with the Web.”

“Oh...oh, right, right. Stupid. You told me that. Sorry.”

“No, it’s--even if this place were to have other entities woven into it, it would be difficult to see them. If I did see them, it would still be difficult to understand why they are here.”

“Heh. Woven.”

“What?”

“Woven, like--like a web.”

“That was unintentional.”

“Was it?”

“I certainly hope so. And I would hate to witness and describe the abject pain and suffering of this domain through nothing but puns about spiders.”

“Do you really have any say in that?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“So you won’t find yourself able to spin another kind of statement?” Martin asked the question with a smirk, and Jon groaned with annoyed affection. 

“No, Martin, I will not be able to spin or otherwise produce a statement besides the one that this domain provides for me.”

“Killjoy.”

“I try my best.”

Martin pursed his lips, and furrowed his brow. Looking ahead at the building in front of them, he tilted his head. “Is it, like...safe? To go in there?”

“Structural integrity isn’t really something you need to be concerned about. Dream logic, remember? It’s not about how the building could fall over at any moment. It’s about how it _looks_ as though it could fall over at any moment. About how something that _looks_ as though it might fall over may make people feel.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t see the Web well.”

“I don’t need to see the Web well to guess what they’re probably going for.”

“What, the anxiety that it’ll topple over at any minute?”

“That sounds about right, yes. Though I can’t tell you exactly what fear this place embodies, or what else may flow through this place. I can only guess. And even then, it's...difficult to pin down what it is. I--when I try to look, it...it branches out, forever. And Smirke’s boundaries aren’t concrete, existing merely for conceptualization. Which means that it’s impossible to rule out all of the ways that this domain’s apparent entity could interconnect with other ones. The boundaries that could be used to separate them out, they’re--they’re meaningless. Everything about this place stretches out and twists and turns back in on itself. It’s...impossible to tell where anything begins and ends.”

“Is that why we couldn’t just...go around this place?”

“It is, yes. Domains, like the entities, don’t have clear boundaries. Some...flow into each other, feeding off of what they have in common, but separate in how they manifest. And this domain is...tangled, with other ones. And once the Web becomes tangled with other domains, they all become harder to see. I wasn’t sure what our options were. Except that the place that was hardest to see amidst all of the murkiness--"

“--had to be the Web. Right.”

“We’ve been through one of its domains before. I thought--we should be able to make it through this one. It seems to be the epicentre of this...group, of domains, I suppose. I think if we make it through this one, we’ll at least have gone through the thick of it.”

“Yeah, fair. We have. But I--god, I didn’t like it. I hate being manipulated. I’ve told you that. And when I’m around places like this, or, or the people that places like this have scuttling around in it…I can feel it, everywhere.”

“We can...try to find a way around it, if you’d like. I’m not sure for how long, or how far, this group of domains reaches. I can try to look, but...”

“But we can’t guarantee it won’t be inside our other options too.”

“That’s correct.”

“Then we might be dealing with this no matter what. At least here we know _what_ we’re dealing with. Entity wise, at least.”

“Quite the advantage when dealing with the Web, all things considered.”

“Yeah,” Martin laughed a little, “guess so. Is it another puppet show?”

“I--I have no idea.”

“Just wondering if I have to prepare myself for more macabre theatre.”

“Not a fan of the dramatic arts, Martin?”

“No. I told you, I might hate it more than I hate being manipulated. The only good thing about that place was none of the theatre was musical.”

Jon smiled, a small, delicate motion that made Martin’s heart flutter. “Tasteless as always.”

“That’s not fair. You didn’t like poetry for a long time.”

“I told you, that changed.”

Looking far too content with himself, Martin smiled back at Jon. “You’re welcome.”

“I never said you had anything to do with it.”

“You didn’t need to tell me. It was pretty obvious.”

“I called it bad! On _tape_!”

“Oh, of course. Ceaseless Watcher, cast your gaze upon this _wretched poetry_ \--”

“I wasn’t trying to smite your poetry, Martin, I was just saying I didn’t like it.”

“Yeah, you did, and then you referenced it about four separate times. Adorable.”

“Yes, alright, alright--”

“ _Adorable_.”

Jon groaned, softly, and slipped his arms around Martin, burying his face into his shoulder. Gently holding Jon’s waist, Martin rested his head against Jon’s. They stayed that way for a moment, and for a lifetime. A small span of time amplified into all the time in the world. Jon’s fingers found their way to the back of Martin’s head, slipping into his hair. Martin made a small, happy sound and leaned his head more into Jon’s, for support, for affection.

They pulled apart from each other, reticently. How long they had been embracing didn’t matter, but it hadn’t nearly been long enough. Looking at the slipshod building ahead of them, Jon felt himself cave in to the usual feeling of dread and excitement, his stomach coiling as he felt the latter. Martin steeled himself, the way he always did before entering these places. He knew it wouldn’t do all the good that it should, but it was always worth a shot.

* * *

_Eadie knows it’s her fault._

_She shouldn’t have ran._

_The webs stick to Eadie’s arms, stronger than anything else she has ever felt in her life. When she first felt them clinging to her arms as she ran from the figures cocooned in silk, choking out pained screams, she thought she would be able to pull away from them. But the strands of silk tenaciously held her arm, gripping it and starting to pull her back, taking away all the progress she’d made in running from them._

_Eadie slips and falls, tumbling onto the floor of the corridor she was running through. The silk continues to pull her backwards, trying to lift her onto the wall. Her fingers grip the threadbare carpet, her nails digging into it, lifting off the nail bed and beginning to bleed as she desperately tries to stay where she is. She glances at the silk clinging to her arms, vainly hoping they are showing signs of wear, that they'll tear and she'll be free from their grip. But the silvery threads only look stronger, and the force of them only seems to grow stronger. Eadie tries to beg for them to stop, to let her go, but no words come out. Her throat feels closed over, though she has no difficult breathing. She can’t tell it to stop, to let her go, only do what she can to resist the inevitable. She knows even if she could call out, ask for them to stop, they would not listen._

_She can’t even tell herself she doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t want this, of course, but she knows she deserves it. She’d let them take Zachary. She heard him cry out, sounding choked and helpless, and she turned around to find him being pulled into the wall by silk, already wrapped around his limbs and seeping into his mouth. Eadie had rushed over, grabbing Zachary’s arm, trying to pull him away from the silk. But Zachary was thoroughly stuck to the wall now, more or less a part of it as the silk held him in place. She kept trying to pull him out, using all the strength she could muster, using both hands to try pulling Zachary away. And that’s when she felt the silk beginning to stick to her skin, trying to take her too. Trying to pin her to the wall in a silk coffin, trying to kill her. Eadie’s brother silently screamed for her help, wrestling within the confines of the silk cocoon, begging Eadie to pull him out. And Eadie pulled her hands away, watching the silk fall off of it as though repelled by her skin. She backed away, watching Zachary become little more than a blotch of interwoven silvery threads pressed against the wall. She heard her brother one last time, hissing out a pained, closed over sob, before she ran._

_She can feel the silk pushing her arms against the wall now. She tries to move her arm, tries to thrash about, but she knows it’s not worth it. The smallest movements are met with an unseen strength from the silk. Her throat feels clogged, and Eadie cannot feel herself breathing. Every indraw of breath is met with the thickness lodged in her airway, unmoving even as she tries to breathe as deeply as she can. Her eyes, too, feel stuck, fixed upwards, forcing her to gaze at all the people who met the same fate as her. But unlike her, they probably didn’t deserve it. They were probably all like Zachary, unwilling and helpless. Nobody there to try pulling them out of their silk cocoons, forced to take this torture alone._

_It shouldn’t have been Zachary. Eadie feels the silk wrapping around her legs now, securing them in place against the wall. It shouldn’t have been her little brother. She’d always been so unfair to him. When they were younger, she didn’t let Zachary in her room whilst she had friends over, calling him boring and no fun. When they were a little older, she didn’t want to sit next to Zachary on the tube on their way home one day, angry with him for embarrassing her at school. Eadie felt her insides tighten at that. Zachary hadn’t even done anything wrong then, not really. It was a humiliating thing to say in front of her crush, but he was younger than her, and he didn’t know any better. She’d given him a hard time when their parents separated, nearly screaming at him over the phone for staying with their mother, after all she’d done to their father. She’d called him a monster then, claimed he’d hated their father. But all Zachary was doing was trying to help her. That’s all he’d ever done. Try to help. If she’d just listened she would have known Zachary was just as angry as she was, and just didn’t want his mother to be without a place to go. Maybe she wouldn't have agreed, but she would have understood._

_But no._

_She never listened._

_She never listened to him, and now he was tied to the wall in a silk prison._

_Eadie felt the silk pressing into her now, trapping her the way it trapped Zachary. Her ribs began to crack, unable to support the weight of the silk pressing into her. Eadie would’ve screamed, but she knew that there was no way she could even open her mouth at this stage._

_But she knows she doesn’t deserve to scream. She deserves to silently accept this, deserves to feel the pain her brother went through after she left him. She won’t fully know how he felt, how betrayed and alone he felt, but she will at least feel the physical pain of it all. She feels the silk all over her now, and knows any struggle she makes will be in vain. She tries to struggle, still, knowing it is pointless, feeling the silk press back against her, unyielding. She tries to scream, and the silk remains sealed over her mouth, unwilling to even let it part open._

_Eadie feels something cold run through her, something cold and burning that tells her, this what she deserves._

* * *

Jon blinked, and rubbed his eyes and forehead.

The Web was hard to make statements for, so averse to being seen and spoken of. Giving a statement for the Web felt rather like struggling to look for something under the microscope, focusing on it for a small frame of time, and then having the entire microscope completely removed from his field of vision. As soon as his statement was done, the Web skittered out of his view, leaving Jon feeling almost disoriented. 

This had been...well, it hadn't been that different from some other statements they had encountered. Certainly a domain of the Web, but seemingly with the influence of other entities tied to it. And a domain that didn't seem to have a clear being "in charge of it". The only thing pursuing the people of this place seemed to be themselves. Jon wanted to call it interesting, but interesting was hardly a good word to use to describe a place such as this. It was terrifying, really. That was all it was.

Jon began to pull himself out of the small hole in the wall he’d gone into to make his statement. The silk strands in the crevice reached out, trying to grab him, but recoiling the moment they got too close to him. Perhaps sensing his guilt was underneath something they could not wrap themselves around. Finally out of the dark little gap in the wall, Jon began brushing dust and stray silk off of his shoulders, and looking around for Martin. 

He felt his stomach lurch when Martin was nowhere to be seen, and all he could see were what felt like endless corridors, dimly lit and almost entirely covered floor to ceiling with people trapped in silk cocoons. 

He called for Martin a few times, and there was no response. The old building around him creaked, sounding both empty and crowded at the same time. 

Jon knew it would be more than easy to get lost, trapped, even, in this place, but he didn't care. He didn't know how long his statement had taken, but Martin, surely, could not have gotten that far away from him in the time it take to give a statement. Jon bolted down the first open looking corridor he could set his eyes on. 

* * *

Martin felt panic well up inside of him. 

He swore, he swore, he had only looked away for a moment. He’d wanted to stay near Jon, not lose sight of him. He knew separating was a incomprehensibly stupid thing to do in a building maintained by the entity of manipulation, so he’d tried to keep sight of Jon as much as he could. And that had been easy enough at first, holding Jon’s hand while they moved through this domain. Jon, quite luckily, made a lot of good guessing about which corridors would lead them out of this place, and which ones were corridors that led to a dead end or got smaller and smaller the more one moved through them. Jon had mentioned quite a few corridors were built as such, in fact. And Martin had told him not to tell him that, because he did not need to feel claustrophobic on top of feeling like he was being manipulated by a building, which sounded really stupid already but it was how he felt. 

But when Jon needed to make a statement...Martin had thought it wouldn’t be the end of the world to look away for a moment. 

Standing in a completely unfamiliar hallway, surrounded by cocooned people who he couldn’t speak to nor help, Martin felt himself panic as he realized just how wrong he had been about that. He wanted to help them--he wished he could--but Jon had told him there was no way to help them, and it was impossible to remove them from where they were. But as Martin walked through the corridor, and saw just how many of _them_ there were...and the fact that there was _nothing_ he could do for any of them...

Martin stopped walking after a moment. If this was a corridor that got slowly smaller and smaller, he didn’t want to keep wandering through it. And he didn’t know why he was still walking, either. All that would do was put more distance between himself and Jon. If he wanted to maintain any hope of Jon finding him, he couldn’t keep walking. He didn’t want to let himself panic, either. If Jon could at least make an educated guess of where things were here, then it was unlikely he would be trapped in here forever. Jon would be able to find him, and would be able to do that with far more facility if he just stayed still. 

Martin sighed, sitting down in a desperate attempt to keep his feet from moving. It was a truly disgusting carpet to be sitting on, grimy and sticky, but it was better than sitting up against any of the walls. The last thing he wanted was those silk strands clinging to the wall reaching out and trying to take him too. 

Martin looked up at the ceiling absentmindedly, and then winced and looked away from the contorted silken faces looking back at him. He didn’t like just sitting around waiting for Jon to rescue him, but he really didn’t have any good options. He could only hope that it wouldn’t take so long that sitting in this silky funhouse just became boring instead of scary. And that Jon found him before he became another torture cocoon on the wall or the ceiling. 

The feeling of something creeping up his arm caught Martin’s attention. At first he jumped, shrieking, and ready to use all of his possible strength to rip silk off of him. He felt his fear plummet a moment later when he saw it was just a spider, clinging on to his arm with its legs and looking up at him. Maybe being less afraid upon seeing a spider was the opposite of the reaction he should have had, but Martin really did like spiders. Even if this one was imbued with some kind of evil manipulation power or whatever, it was still cute. Eight black, beady eyes, arranged in a little formation on its face. Fat and hairy, clinging to Martin’s jumper now with its little sticky paws, and beginning to wipe its eyes with its pedipalps. If it was about to jump up and bite him, it was certainly taking its time. Though Martin likely should’ve considered shaking it off of him, the last thing he wanted to do was pick a fight with a supernatural spider, especially when it seemed like it was in no rush to cause a problem. 

A moment or so passed before Martin relaxed, as much as he could, and just looked at the spider clinging to his sleeve. He gave a little smile to it. “Hello there. Nice to see a friendly face here,” he said, half sarcastically, “I thought it was strange how this place didn’t have any giant spiders scuttling around in it.”

The spider made no indication that it understood what Martin had said. 

“Is it just you here, or do you have any friends? I thought that this place would’ve been crawling with spiders, but I think you’re the first one I’ve seen. Is it you who’s running it here? Or are you just hanging out here because it suits you?”

“Don’t tell Jon, but I still think you’re rather cute, even if you are like...full of evil mind power magic. I hate this place, but I--well, I like you. I always did like the big friendly fuzzy spiders like you. Some people don’t like big spiders, and I--I guess I get that. But all spiders are trying to do is help. And the bigger the spider, the more bugs they eat. They just get ignored a lot because it’s not the help people want, or, they just don’t like how spiders look. Maybe they like the idea of what spiders do, and they just don’t want to see the spider itself. They like the idea of less bugs, but once they see you skittering around on the ceiling or building your web in the cellar...that’s when they probably start liking you a lot less, right?”

“I hope Jon can find me. I’m afraid he won’t. Don’t suppose you’ll volunteer in helping him find his way to me, eh? I don’t think he’d trust your directions, even if you did. I don’t blame him. I’d probably think a spider in a place like this giving me directions probably doesn’t have the best of intentions too, and I _like_ spiders. Jon's still pretty wary of them, you know.”

Martin sighed. “I feel badly, you know. I--I mean, this is my fault, isn’t it? I told him to go tell his spooky story to the inside of a bloody wall crevice. I made him go somewhere else, and then, then I looked away for a second. I made us get separated, and now...and now it’s at the very least going to take us even longer to get out of this place, because Jon had take a Rescue Martin detour. If I hadn’t wandered off like this, maybe we could have been nearly out of here by now. Maybe if I’d just stuck by Jon and dealt with his statement and--I don’t know, covered my ears or something--then I wouldn’t have gotten lost like this. I thought it would be fine, I mean--we separated from each other the last time we were in a place like this! I didn’t think--I didn’t think this would happen! If I’d just--stayed there, with him, then I wouldn’t have ended up becoming a giant inconvenience for him.”

“That’s all I am to him, I think. I mean--I know he loves me. I know I love him. But...outside of that? He doesn’t need me. I know he doesn’t. I think I’m just slowing him down, really, and--and that’s all I’ve ever done. Even before all of this happened, I...the amount of time I put him in danger, because I did something careless or just...just daft, really. Like what happened with Prentiss. I’m just doing it all over again now, aren’t I? Mum told me once I just don’t care, about anyone. That all I do is take from people, and don’t do anything for them. I feel like maybe she was right sometimes. I mean, all the times she shouted at me, saying I wasn’t doing enough for her, that I shouldn’t be around her if I wasn’t going to do more…”

“I love him. I really love him, but...but I hate how useless I am to him sometimes. I wish there were things I could do to help him, but I don’t know what that would even be. I didn’t want to give Annabelle the satisfaction that she got to me, like, christ, but...she was right. I’m just trying to not let it bother me as best I can, really. I know I can just talk to Jon about this, but...you know. There’s nothing he can do, either. Try to help and reassure me but...he can’t really help with that. All he can do is help me feel better. And that can only help for so long when the actual problem isn’t something he can really help me with.”

Sighing, Martin let his arm drop. The spider on his arm had long since scuttled to his knee, where it was eyeing him with a feeling Martin couldn’t quite place. Curiously, perhaps. It definitely wasn’t watching him in a way that Martin felt normal spiders looked at people. Normal spiders just stared up, blankly, unable to truly process the large animal they were resting on. No, this spider seemed different. More aware of its surroundings. Aware, even, of the creature that was speaking to it. Whether it could understand him or not, Martin didn’t know, but it felt like company nonetheless. Martin didn’t feel up to it, but he managed a little smile.

“I know you’re not a real spider. Or, well, you are, but a different kind of real spider. I know that you’re something else. But it’s nice to talk to someone down here while I wait for Jon.”

The spider stood a little taller, and then quickly scrambled off of Martin’s leg. 

When Martin tried to move his leg away to give the spider more room to move, that was when he noticed his foot was firmly stuck to the floor. He hadn’t noticed it before--too caught up in looking at the mysterious spider he’d run into--but strands of silk were already beginning to weave themselves up over his boot, firmly rooted in the carpet. The carpet also didn’t seem to look like it was moving, despite how thin and ratty it looked.

He couldn’t panic. He knew he couldn’t. While panic was probably not the thing that was keeping people here, Martin knew it certainly wouldn’t help. He wrapped his hands around his calf and tried desperately to pull it off the ground, which only succeeded in pulling his foot up a few centimeters with a wet squelching noise as the silk stretched upwards. As Martin let go, his felt his foot firmly pulled back down into the ground, as though an hand had pulled it back down. Muttering a curse, Martin tried removing his foot from the ground, and again, it pulled back as soon as Martin let go of his leg. When Martin tried to remove his boot entirely, he’d found the interior of it lined with sticky webbing, securing his foot inside of it and making removal impossible. 

Not good did not begin to describe his situation. He wasn’t sure if Jon could help him out of this, even with all of his special apocalypse powers. Unless…

Martin swallowed thickly. There _was_ one thing Jon could do to less literally pull him out of this, but Martin would rather Jon leave him here to become a cocoon on the floor if it came to that. Martin didn’t know what the repercussions of that would be, or what it would do to him. Sure, it would make him suffer less, but only for a moment. Whether or not it was worth not getting crushed to death by silk, Martin didn’t know, and he didn’t like thinking about it, either. 

Biting his inner lip, Martin tried not to cry, even as he felt hot tears prickling the rims of his eyes. Here he was, inconveniencing Jon again. The worst part of all of this was that there really was no way out this time. Jon didn’t have any good options. Not like Prentiss, not like Lukas...there was truly _no way out_ this time. Jon couldn’t come to rescue him this time, not without seriously hurting him in the process. And why should Jon come to his rescue? Hadn’t Martin gotten himself in enough trouble already? Shouldn’t Jon have realized that all Martin did was keep him back this whole time? It’s not like he did anything to help him, it’s not like he ever justified his presence. All the people they had run into had called Martin things that reminded him, constantly, that he was unneeded, the one who needs protection, the one who isn’t doing anything. 

Martin stopped trying to keep himself from crying. His eyes stung. He felt the silk working its way up his calf now, felt his other foot and leg becoming stuck to the floor. Martin tried to move, tried to pull himself up before it was too late, but the silk was already strong enough that his movement was severely restricted. Martin desperately tried moving his legs, but the silk pulled back with a force beyond what he expected, slamming his legs down against the floor with a hollow smack.

If only he’d just stayed near Jon. He knew he didn’t want to hear whatever statement this horrible place would provide, but he should’ve just stayed. If he’d just stayed, then none of this would have happened. In all likelihood, he’d become trapped here, and Jon would have to leave him, and Jon would only blame himself for it. More than anything else Martin wished he could tell Jon it wasn’t his fault, that Jon didn’t do anything, but maybe by the time Jon found him, Martin wouldn’t even be able to form words.

The silk had his legs pinned to the ground now. It baffled Martin how strong it was, staying firmly in place even as Martin thrashed his legs. The creeping movement of it up his legs was slow, but it was noticeable, and Martin tried to at the very least maneuver himself into a position he’d be marginally more comfortable stuck in for the foreseeable future. The silk started to climb up his thighs, latching itself to them and spreading out around him, making his lower half look more and more like it was being cocooned. 

Martin shut his eyes. 

He didn’t want to look at this. He didn’t want to be looking at anything around him. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with Jon, somewhere else, far away from all of this. He wanted to feel Jon’s arms around him, feel Jon’s hands lazily clutching his back. He wanted his head to be in the crook of Jon’s neck, feeling him there, present, unwavering. He wanted to experience Jon through all of his senses, and feel comfort in a way he wasn’t used to feeling, because he’d never felt it before, in his life. He wanted to be comforted, because he’d never really been comforted. Jon didn’t even need to do anything. Jon just had to be there. 

Martin just wanted to go _home_.

And couldn’t. 

And maybe he never would, again. 

Maybe he'd never see Jon again, because by the time Jon found him, he'd just be a vaguely human shaped cocoon of silk on the floor.

He needed Jon, in this moment, he needed Jon more than anything, but Jon wasn’t here. 

Martin gritted his teeth, feeling the silk beginning to pull down his upper thighs. He couldn’t bear to watch it happen.

It was his fault this was happening at all, and maybe he even deserved it.

Maybe she’d been right this whole time. Maybe he was just a bad son, who couldn’t do enough for his mother. Who didn’t care enough to help his mother when she really needed help, just ignored her and couldn’t be bothered truly doing everything he could to help her.

_You just don’t care about me. You don’t care about anyone._

Maybe he was useless. That’s why she went to a nursing home. That’s why she didn’t want to see him, why their visits were always so short. 

_Get out. Go rot somewhere else._

And maybe it was his fault she was dead. He’d stressed her out so much, he knew he did. He was nothing but unfair to her, not taking into account how she just wasn’t doing well, and that was her problem. He couldn’t be nicer to her, couldn’t be a better son, couldn’t just accept how she just had _problems_ and love and accept her, instead of getting upset about how she treated him. He could’ve just _cared_ about her more, been more patient, just _done more_ for her, done _better_ for her...

Martin let the feeling run its course through him. He was used to it. It didn’t feel scary or strange, and maybe that was the worst part. It was a heavy feeling, something he felt in his lungs and his bones. It didn’t feel hot, or cold. It felt like something that had always been there, pooling from somewhere else inside of him and spreading everywhere it could. It obfuscated everything, it felt like. He couldn’t think of anything without attributing guilt to it, which meant he couldn’t relax, not really, without remembering all of the things that were his fault. He felt it, deep in his chest, felt it stuck there, not letting him move. 

Martin felt the silk there, too. 

In fact, upon opening his eyes, he saw the silk beginning to pile up there, radiating out from his solar plexus as it began pulling his torso down into the carpet. It was piling up in other places too, like on his knees, which always felt simultaneously heavy and weak whenever he got to feeling like this. Martin furrowed his brow. He let the feeling continue, let himself feel worse about this situation, about how it was his fault, and the silk continued to stretch out from his chest and into the floor, as though under some sort of direction. 

_Fuck off_ , Martin thought to himself, unwilling to open his mouth in the event the silk tried getting in there. He didn’t know what feeling he expected this place would embody, but it certainly hadn’t been this. Realization dawned on him when he considered the little spider he’d met, and how he’d made the command decision to start telling it how he was feeling--maybe that had been entirely this place’s intention. Martin huffed bitterly, cursing himself. If that was truly what happened, then his getting stuck at all was also his fault. Martin promptly stopped thinking about this as he felt the silk begin to spread out his chest, towards his neck. No, he wouldn’t think about that. Not unless he wanted to have his entire face covered in silk and have it pushing down his throat like the unfortunate victims of this place all around him. 

Martin closed his eyes again. If he just tried to focus on something, anything, besides how this situation made him feel, maybe he could outlast getting cocooned before Jon found him. And maybe Jon could do...something. Something that didn’t involve a worse-case scenario solution. Maybe Jon wouldn’t have to leave without him. Maybe everything would be fine. 

But ignoring how he was feeling was difficult, especially in a place that seemed to encourage it. Martin did his best to breathe deeply, despite the silk threatening to press down on his chest. Fine, maybe he couldn’t ignore it. Ignoring it, really, had a way of making it worse, because it still stayed in the back of his mind, still creeping up his body, still trapping him. 

But maybe he could explore it. Maybe he could think about it, without actually thinking about it. Give the Web what it wanted, without actually giving it what it wanted. It was the best he could do. 

He knew that he wasn’t actually useless to Jon. He knew he _felt_ useless. He knew he made Jon happy. He knew it every time Jon smiled at him, laughed at something he’d said. He knew Jon loved him. He knew he loved Jon. But Jon was struggling. He had issues, and a lot of them. And many of them were ones Martin had no way of solving. He could try, of course he could; but it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Martin knew that, but more to the point, so did Jon. And Jon that’s why Jon wouldn’t let him. Saying he was “very sad” about the state of things was, Martin knew, not even remotely close to how Jon felt. He loved Jon, he loved him so much...but he couldn’t solve _any_ of this. And with the problems that Martin could solve, at least physically...there’s very little that does as effective a job of removing an immediate threat than smiting. Physical protection wasn’t even something Martin was able to provide Jon. 

There were normal ways to feel guilt. Normal, more healthy ways that were justified in their circumstances. 

But Martin blamed himself for so much more than that. He'd told himself that, point-blank. He'd witnesses his own domain and every bit of it made his blood run cold. An entire place that was built on the horrible thing that sustained him. On the feeling of suffering in complete silence. On pushing others away before they had a chance for rejection. On trying to reach out and being ignored completely. On making others feel helpless, like there was nothing they could do to help anyways. And how right it felt, even if it also felt wrong. There was a whole domain now, full of this feeling, with people suffering in it, because of _him_. 

When he really thought about it...he felt angry. Angry that there was nothing he could do to help someone who needed help. Hypocritical of him to an extent, he knew, but it was how he felt. 

Martin could feel his guilt, radiating inside and out, but he felt something else underneath all of that. 

He was angry. 

Angry about how much he’d done for his mother, and how terribly she treated him his entire life. Acting as though he’d never done anything to help her. Angry with how little she actually cared about him. Angry for all the times she’d shouted at him, thrown things at him, used all of her strength to hit him or knock things over when she was angry with him. And she was, often. Angry about something he'd forgotten to do, angry about a small detail he forgot. Angry about him asking questions she didn't feel like answering, angry about him telling her not to get up, not to _hurt herself, please, Mum, just stop before you hurt yourself_.

She always did hate it when he told her not to get up, not to move something. But she couldn't. He didn't want to see her get hurt, not when he was there to help her. It always made him angry when she went ahead and did it anyways, hurting herself because she _didn't_ want any help, because she was _fine, Martin, shut up_. 

He hated having to lie on his CV. It tore him up, for the longest time, and it had been nothing short of a tremendous relief when Jon said he wouldn't mention it to anyone. But Martin had had no choice. The medical bills, the utility bills, everything, it piled up faster than Martin could even begin making a dent in it with a part-time job. It'd been nothing short of a struggle trying to get and maintain disability checks, and even then, they weren't much help. And when he dropped out, trying to support them both, it was hard to find a full-time job at seventeen. He ended up having no choice. He had to, if he was going to get a job. They needed the money, and desperately. He'd hoped that getting a job would've done something, would've _finally shown_ he was helping them both, but...

But...no. 

No.

It didn't matter, in the end. 

She’d always been too stubborn and bitter to see her son as anything other than “no better than” his father. To stubborn and bitter to look past his father at all, really. He’d done _so much_ for her, he _knew_ he had, and all she did was shove away his help wherever she could. She’d always find something wrong with him, always find a reason to be angry and take it out in him. She'd checked herself into a nursing home, because _she_ refused his help, because _she_ didn’t love him.

 _"If you really want to help me, then just let stay there instead. With people who can_ actually _help me."_

She lived for years and years not loving him, and died not loving him, probably died without a shred of regret for how much she’d hurt him. Still hung up in her own issues. She struggled her whole life, and she was terrible. And she was dead. Thank christ, she was dead.

He could paint over how he really felt about it with guilt for the rest of his life if he wanted to, but really, he was glad she was dead.

And he was angry about every bad thing that happened at the Archives, too. Angry about how Prentiss had followed him there and decided to make a worm-infested mess of the place. He spent weeks living in the Archives, sleeping with a corkscrew and a fire extinguisher because he was too afraid to leave, knowing for a fact how pathetic he looked to everyone around him. How the whole situation had led to Sasha getting killed, by that _thing_ that pretended to be her for all that time. All that time they had spent wearing Sasha's memories and relationships like a suit, until it found its time to pop out and make everyone's lives worse. Tim hurt from it, Martin knew he did. Everyone hurt from it, but Martin could tell how badly it hurt Tim. 

He was angry at Peter Lukas, for being the horrible thing Martin had to keep back for months and months, being nothing but vague and irritating the entire time. Angry at Peter for circling around Jon like a hungry vulture, for forcing Martin to withdraw from everyone and everything just so Peter wouldn't try and use someone else for his plans. He'd spent all of those months, alone and silent, incapable of talking to anyone and glad that he was. He hated how those months felt, how eight and wrong they felt at the same time. 

But not just Peter; certainly not just Peter. He was angry with Elias and Peter, and how they’d presented nothing but two bad options. Angry at Elias for starting this whole apocalypse in the first place, guiding Jon right into his plans the entire time and making Jon think it was _his_ fault.

Elias caused the entire world to end, and he was enjoying it. He threw most of the world into a state of utter pain and horror, and didn't care in the slightest. He'd spent years and years luring Jon into something he couldn't escape from and hurting whoever he could along the way. People were suffering, and they could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Every moment Elias stayed alive while people were suffering on _his_ behalf, because _he wanted it_ , was a moment too long. Martin was angry, because Elias was _alive_ , and _breathing_ , and _not lying on the ground, choked to death_. 

Martin gritted his teeth again. He was angry he couldn’t do enough for people. Angry he couldn’t justify his presence by doing enough, angry that all people saw him as Jon's plus one in the apocalypse world tour.

_Is that all guilt is?_

_A muzzle for being angry?_

_Something to use as a plaster over anger, because it’s unreasonable to be angry? To push the anger down, reframe the anger as something wrong with you, and not your circumstances? Not the things and people around you who just didn't want you to be happy? Because you don’t like yourself so much, you can’t imagine that maybe, someone else did something wrong, and not you? And when it really is your fault, aren’t you just mad at yourself for not doing well enough? For not doing better than you could have?_

And this was just how he felt.

Never mind how Jon probably felt, being told he was endangering someone he loved, feeling as though he had to protect Martin from every little thing in this grotesquely transformed world. Blaming himself for the state of the world as it was, and blaming himself every time Martin was in any kind of danger. 

Martin inhaled, deeply. 

He felt a lot of things. 

He was guilty, yes. He was always guilty.

But he was angry, too. Just as angry as he was guilty. 

And he was in love. 

More than he was guilty, more than he was angry, more than he reveled in suffering in silence and feeling ignored, knowing he wasn't a burden, making others feel helpless because at least it meant they cared...

More than _all of that_ , he was in love.

He was in love, and he wouldn’t let Jon blame himself for this. Not if he had even a shred of a say in the matter. He’d find Jon and hug him, kiss him, let him know this wasn’t his fault, remind himself that it wasn't either of their fault, and that this place was just terrible. Remember that they didn’t need each other, not for their entire existences. They _wanted_ each other. That even as the world was falling about in a fear apocalypse around them, they _wanted_ each other, as people, as partners. The thing holding them together wasn't a requirement, for protection, for help. Just love. That choice was always more important than necessity with these kinds of things. 

He took a deep breath, and tried, desperately, to try and pull himself up from the ground again. Tightening his muscles and focus, Martin took a moment to prepare himself for the intense pushback he knew he would feel as he tried getting up. It wouldn’t be easy, he knew it wouldn’t. But he didn’t feel his guilt tugging at him right now, didn’t feel it clinging to him on the inside, immovable. He could do this.

_I’ve…I’ve got this._

_I’ve got this._

_I’m not stuck here._

_I’m not stuck here, and I’ll find Jon._

_I’ve got this._

Martin expected more of a fight from the threads around him. Instead of keeping him glued to the ground like he expected, they fell from his body as though they were simply silk that belonged to a regular spider. Martin had tensed his entire body for the sheer effort it would take to move even a few centimeters, and stumbled forwards as he met no resistance from the silk around him, landing on his knees. Kneeling on the carpet, Martin coughed, hoping desperately none of the silk had found its way into his mouth, and brushed remnant silk off of himself. 

Despite being easier than he’d thought it would be, Martin felt sore. Adrenaline, he’d figured. Bodies weren’t meant to move like that. His eyes, his mouth, and back all felt as though they’d had something ripped off of them, throbbing in pain, and he stung all over. When he blinked, it felt a little different, though he couldn’t place how. He felt something in his mouth, too, but he didn’t want to try sticking his hands in his mouth if he even had a trace of silk on them. Running his tongue along the inside of his mouth, he felt...something. His teeth, probably. They just felt weird like the rest of his body did at the present. 

Looking up, the cocoons were just as thick and horrifying as they had been before. Some of them pulsed, as though there were some vain movement underneath them. But none of them moved. 

“Try not to think about it,” Martin said, to nobody in particular, “just get angry about it. That’s what worked for me.”

He wasn't sure if they could hear him. Maybe the silk got into their ears and made it impossible for them to hear anyone who might try talking to them, like sticky little earplugs. Martin shuddered at the thought. They’d just have to be saved later, if Martin couldn’t get to any of them. 

Looking down the corridor, Martin thought about staying still. He wasn’t so sure about staying here, not unless he wanted to get mired down in silk again. Martin thought about it for a few moments, debating what he should do. It was a few moments into this when Martin began to hear a voice echoing through the building. Faint. But unmistakable. 

Martin was about to run towards it when he thought, briefly, of how it could just as easily be something pretending to be Jon, so it could lure him into his trap. But then, Martin thought, the thing trapping people in here didn’t seem to be any _thing_ , per se. The thing trapping people here, Martin realized...was themselves. There was no queen spider or whatever sitting proudly in a web in the center of this house. 

_Like the ants,_ Martin thought, _but just...a feeling. A feeling that keeps people trapped here. That controls them. That makes them feel like they have no free will._

If he was hearing Jon, it probably was Jon. Not some creature pretending it was him. 

Martin tried to lock in on the direction the voice was coming from, and moved towards it at a speed that surprised even him.

* * *

Jon had long since stopped caring about where he was going. He knew he was being reckless, and falling into whatever trap the Web had laid for him, but he didn’t care. He needed to find Martin, and that was the only thing on his mind. 

The corridors of this place seemed to stretch on forever, taking sudden twists and turns and leading to dead ends. It was frustrating to see normally, and even more frustrating for Jon to see abnormally. Trying to get a sense for how this place was laid out gave him a headache. It looked like several maps laid on top of one another, offering no clear indication of where anything went. A few times he was lucky enough to guess where another corridor was, but those guesses were becoming fewer and more far between. 

And if that wasn’t enough, Jon had just completely lost any and all sign he had of Martin. He hadn’t wanted to try looking for him, but there was only so much guessing he could do in this place. When he’d finally tried looking, he could only faintly make out where Martin could possibly be, before Martin all but vanished. Worse yet, Jon didn’t have the faintest clue for why that would be. He knew of all the possibilities for why, but the Web was especially talented at muddling which of those possibilities were truly the case. 

Leaning against the wall, Jon muttered an expletive. He had completely lost Martin, and it was his fault. He could’ve asked Martin to stay closer, not take his eyes off of him, anything--he could’ve also just _not_ stopped for a statement. Yes, it would’ve been painful, but why should that have been more important than Martin’s safety in a place like this? Now that they knew what sort of a place this was, he was more than afraid of what might happen if Jon took too much longer finding him. He would, eventually--he knew that much--but how long that would take and the state Martin would be when he found him? Jon didn’t know.

Jon started walking again, calling for Martin, and losing more and more hope every time he did so. Turning around another corridor, which mercifully led down to another hall and not a dead end, Jon sighed, but continued regardless. “Martin?! Martin?!”

The usual noise of an old, creaking building, and muffled wet movements under silk, were his only response. Jon closed his eyes, pained, and took a step into the new, empty corridor ahead of him. He didn’t want to give up hope. Martin wouldn’t want him to. Because Martin wouldn’t want to be stuck in a place like this, yes, but because Martin had faith in him, and Jon wouldn’t betray it. He’d find Martin. He would. 

Jon took a few steps into the corridor. It looked like more of the same. The walls and floor made up of a dark grey brick that glistened, wet and sticky, in the sickly light coming from a suspended light bulb on the ceiling. The same ratty carpet that was torn in places but seemed stuck to the floor. Less cocooned people than usual, Jon had noticed, though further down the hall were the usual white splotches. He closed his eyes, and tried desperately for something, anything. It didn’t even need to be Martin, though he wholeheartedly hoped it was. The old, horrible house creaked all around him, but it remained silent otherwise.

Jon froze when he finally, _finally_ realized that he’d heard another voice besides his own. Though he knew it wouldn’t change anything, Jon kept his eyes shut and tensed his body, trying to listen again, hoping for all the world that he had not misheard.

_“Jon?!”_

Jon gave a shuddering exhale, and nearly doubled over from the amount of relief he felt hearing Martin’s voice.

“Martin?!”

“Jon?!”

“Martin?! Martin, where are you, I--I can’t see you, and I can barely hear you.”

No response. 

Jon desperately tried keeping his heart and hope afloat. “Martin?!”

It was a while before Martin responded, but when Jon heard it again, closer this time, he thought that relief might in fact knock him unconscious. “Jon? I’m--hold on, I think I know where you are.”

Jon blinked, perplexed. “You...do? Martin...how?”

“I think so. And I don’t know, I just...just, just keep talking, I think I’m close to you.”

“Martin, I’m--” Jon exhaled, shakily, about to cry from relief, “Martin, I’m so sorry. I should have--I should have told you to stay closer, or, or not look away from me. This place, it’s--I didn’t know until my statement. It traps people here with their own guilt. Nothing concrete is in charge of this place. I suspect that’s why the other domains are bled into by this one, it’s...there’s no way to just make it all go away.”

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I _know_.”

Jon frowned, feeling a pit in his stomach. So he knew. Jon sighed. If nothing else he was just lucky Martin wasn’t pinned to the ground in a silk cocoon by now. “...God, Martin. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t--it’s my fault, Jon. I’m the one who wandered off.”

“Martin, I just explained why thinking that is _not_ a good idea here. Frankly I shouldn't be saying things like that either, and--”

Jon cut himself off with a yelp, and he staggered back into the wall, eyes wide and breaths shaky. What appeared behind him in the entrance to the corridor was decidedly _not_ Martin. It definitely _resembled_ Martin, having the same face and body...but that was where the similarities ended. Whatever this thing standing in the doorway was, it was more spider than it was human. It clung to the walls with what looked like thick, furry limbs, though it was difficult to see with so little light. And Jon didn’t particularly want to get a closer look. 

Jon looked into its eyes, pitch black and unblinking. They were arranged in a neat little pattern across the thing’s face, so much like Martin’s, _so much like Martin’s_ that it made Jon want to cry. Looking a little closer, something underneath the blackness of the eyes seemed to move. Pupils, perhaps? Jon wasn’t sure. 

“Jon?” the thing tilted its head, eyes shifting in unison, “what’s wrong?”

When it spoke, Jon could see the full extent of what he now saw were fangs. Not the sort of fangs one would expect to see on a person, like in cartoon vampires. They were thick, black fangs, covered in what looked like hair closer to the top. Jon shivered. They were huge, strong looking things, seemingly ready to sink themselves into whatever they came into contact with. 

But god, that wasn’t even the worst part, and it was already terrifying. 

Jon watched, up above him, four spidery legs, moving independently of one another, and reaching up over its shoulders, reaching for Jon’s hands with their hairy, clawed paws. Jon could feel them closing in on him, looking ready to grab him at any moment.

“G-get away from me,” Jon managed, shakily, “I-I didn’t know that you were here. And if you let me go I have no reason to let the Ceaseless Watcher look upon you. We can both go out separate ways.”

“Jon, what are you talking about?” Reluctantly, it pulled away from Jon, taking its spidery limbs with it. It had the same inflections as Martin, making the same shrill exclamations Martin always made when he was annoyed and surprised at the same time. Jon’s stomach clenched and he pressed back against the wall, ignoring how clammy and sticky it was.

“Stop using his voice,” Jon felt at least slightly calmer now, without the threat of spider limbs looming above him, “you’ve already succeeded in getting close to me. You don’t need to force me to witness the tragedy of my own boyfriend killing me if that’s what you’re trying to do here.”

The spider balked, furrowing his brow over its, Jon assumed, primary set of eyes. “What? Jon, seriously, what the hell are you talking about? I--why are you acting like you don’t recognize me? It's Martin, Jon, your--your boyfriend!”

“Because I _don’t_ recognize you! Sure, you look--you have his face, you mostly look like him--but it’s obvious you’re not him. Did you think that you looked like a perfect replication of him and snuck up on me thinking that? Pathetic. Careless.”

“Do I...not look like myself?” The spider seemed confused, genuinely, and Jon had to admit it was convincing. 

Jon scoffed. “I don’t recall Martin having eight eyes and spider legs, no.”

“Eight eyes and--?” It ran its claws over its face, and made a small gasp. Looking at its hand, and then at its extra limbs, it backed away from Jon. The longer, spidery limbs seemed to have minds of their own, scrambling aimlessly like a spider flipped over on its back. If all of this surprise was an act, it was incredibly genuine. And, truth be told, if this really was some kind of spider monster, it could’ve just killed him already, ripped him to shreds if it really wanted, trapped him in a cocoon, or...something. This was...strange behavior, to be sure. Perhaps this was just the inner workings of the Web, and its intricate ways of manipulation, but...it didn’t feel like it was. If this was truly just an act by a monster trying to let Jon let his guard down, it didn't make much sense to appear to Jon as some kind of spider-person. It made even less sense that it didn't just strike when it had the chance.

Jon could verify he would at least be somewhat aware of the Web using some kind of mind control on him, and--well, he hadn’t attempted using any of his power granted to him by the Ceaseless Watcher to verify if this was truly Martin or not. Because he was beginning to think, more and more, that there was a possibility that it _was_ Martin. And he’d promised he wouldn’t look into Martin’s head, and wasn’t about to break that promise just because he couldn’t trust Martin the old fashioned way. 

The spider--Martin?--look at Jon again, extra legs quivering. “Jon, I--” he looked at Jon now, his eight eyes welling up with tears, “Jon, I--I didn’t know! I had--Jon, I was just trying to get out! The--the silk, it, it was pinning me down and I had no way to get out, and I thought it was going to keep me there forever, and the more I thought about how--Jon, I thought that I’d just been able to break out of it, I didn’t know that it did this!”

Jon furrowed his brow, his face the perfect encapsulation of confusion. “I--what? What are you saying? What did what to you?”

“Turn me into some kind of--I don’t know, _this_ ! We got separated, Jon, and I--the silk that’s cocooning everyone in this place. It got around me too, once I started thinking about how...how it was my fault. And I couldn’t get out of it, until I figured out that--well, it’s like you said. This place traps people with their guilt. I thought if I could just think about that and then turn it into something else, I’d be able to get out of the guilt cocoon this place was trying to wrap me in. Use the power of the place against itself, by giving it what it wants and then turning it on itself. I-I mean...that's all guilt is really, sometimes. It's just a cover for something else you don't want to feel, and maybe what's controlling your feelings isn't actually guilt. Jon, I--I genuinely don’t have a bloody clue what happened. I...I thought about how angry all of this made me, and...and how much I love you. How much I didn’t want to get trapped here and let you leave, because you couldn’t do anything, thinking it was all your fault when it wasn’t. Leaving here doing exactly what this place wants you to do. Jon, I--I love you. I didn’t want you to blame yourself for something else that wasn’t your fault. But now I--now I’m _this_ , and you don’t even recognize me, and I--” 

Martin (because that could only be who this was), stopped talking. It looked for all the world like his face was leaking, tears pouring out of every eye on his face. Noticing this, he covered his face, his fuzzy extra limbs curling around his body. Jon stared at him, feeling an intense mix of emotions wash over him as he watched his happen. One of which he tried his hardest not to feel. Not while he was here, anyways. He'd feel it later, let it wash over him, let himself think about all the things he could have done to not let this happen to Martin. It was the last thing he wanted, truly. 

He felt tears threatening to push themselves out his eyes, and he stood up. He walked over to Martin, and knelt down next to him. Martin was covered his face, his spidery limbs hanging over him. They quivered, shaking with the rest of Martin’s body. Jon’s expression softened. 

“Martin,” Jon placed a hand on Martin’s, working their fingers together, “Martin, I...I’m sorry. I...I had no idea it was you, I genuinely thought--god, Martin. I wish there was something I could do to take away how that probably felt to you. I--I know it must have been terrible. And--what you went through...what the Web did to you when you were just trying to _escape_ , just trying to find me...god, Martin. I'm so, so sorry. I wish this never had happened, and I...I can only imagine how it all feels right now for you, how much pain it has put you in. I--I’m here now. I know it's you, I--and I'm not, I'm not looking in your head to confirm that. I...I trust it's you. And I won’t leave. Never. Not...unless you want me to.”

Martin didn’t answer. He inhaled shakily, choking a little sob, but peered out from between his fingers with more than two eyes. He swallowed thickly, his fangs working as he did so. Jon frowned, moved closer, and wrapped his arms around Martin. Martin shifted under his touch, but not away from it. He felt Martin’s head move to the crook of his shoulder, felt hot tears seeping into the fabric of his jacket. Martin’s hands and arms finally wrapped around Jon, holding him closely. Jon felt the extra legs closing in on the both of them, and it made him tense, but the last thing he wanted to do was shy away from Martin. Instead, he made himself more comfortable on the frankly disgusting carpet, and held Martin as close to him as he could. Despite everything that had happened to him, it still felt like Martin. Broad, strong, and soft. He squeezed Martin in his arms.

Martin cried into his shoulder for a while. It came in waves, moments of silence followed by sobs. Jon kept Martin close the entire time, telling him it was okay, even if it wasn’t. It was not okay, not at all. The last thing Jon had wanted was to throw Martin into the clutches of one of the entities. But Martin, truthfully, hadn’t been in the clutches of the Web at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d gotten the Web into his own clutches. And that was precisely why this had happened to him. There was no tricking the Web, not without getting its attention. Martin had not succeeded in distancing himself from it, not like he had with the Lonely. Out of the silk cocoon, into the spider's web, as it were. He'd just become a part of it. Jon felt himself beginning to cry again, and he leaned against Martin and cried softly into him. 

It was a while before Martin sniffled, and pulled away from Jon to look at him. Jon smiled, and placed a hand on Martin’s cheek. It was fuzzy, bristly, almost, covered in fine little hairs. Martin leaned into Jon’s hand.

He reached out, for Jon, asking wordlessly, and leaned forwards slightly. Jon moved forwards to meet him, holding Martin's outstretched hands with one of his own and cupping Martin's cheek in the other. Their lips slipped together as easily as they always did. Jon felt hairy fangs pressing into his mouth, and was taken aback for a moment before deciding he didn't mind it at all. They kissed like this for a while, soft lips against sharp fangs. Jon felt extra limbs nudging into his back. Jon flinched at their contact, but seeing how this made concern flash over Martin's face, Jon sighed and reached up and took one of the spidery limbs in his hand. Bringing it up to his lips, he kissed it, very gently. Martin made another soft noise, and brought his lips to Jon's again, one last time, letting the kiss last as long as it could, feeling alive and human in a way he didn't think was possible. 

“I love you,” Martin said, pulling away, and almost a whisper, "I don't want you leave. Not unless _you_ want to." Tears prickled his eyes again, all four pairs of them.

“I love you too,” Jon leaned forward, gently kissing Martin on the cheek. Martin made a soft little noise. Jon pulled away, giving Martin a small smile. “I won't leave. I promise. Unless...Martin, if...if you want to stay here, I...I understand. I--I certainly don’t want you to. But if you want to, I feel you should have that decision.”

“What, is it like--like my domain now? Wait, do I have two now, or--?”

“Er, no,” Jon squinted, “no, not quite. The…’person’, if you can call it that, that this domain belongs to is still the guilt of all the people here. I...suppose if you wanted to do something about the kind of guilt here then perhaps you could, but…”

“Oh.”

“Yes. I--I didn’t mean to suggest you stay here to become the evil spider lord of this place. Just that I know this place may not...hurt you, the way other places might.”

“May not?"

“It’s hard to know, with the Web. But I don't think it can."

“Ah, right. Well. Honestly? No,” Martin shook his head gently, “no, Jon. I don’t want that. I want to get out of here. I want to get out of here and never come back. Even if nothing happens to me here. I want to get out of here.”

"I understand. And--Martin?"

"Jon?"

"If you ever...want to talk about this. I understand. At least, on the end of...what you are now. If you want to discuss the full extent of what happened, or how this all feels to you, I--I can help you. Or at least listen."

"I--" Martin sighed, "no, yeah. Thanks. I want to tell you not to worry, that this is all fine, but...but it isn't. I know it isn't, and so do you. I really told you most of what happened, unless you want a play by play of the whole thing. But I'll--I'll try and tell you if something comes up. And--please talk to me too, alright? I hate feeling like I can't help you. I can't help with everything all the time, I know that. And I really can't, but I...I want to help where I can."

"You already help me more than you know. Just by being with me. And even if you weren't, Martin, I wouldn't care. I don't just love the things you do for me or help me with. I love you."

"I love you too. And--yeah," Martin smiled, "just let me know if you need help, okay?"

"Well, if you're offering you're services," Jon rested a hand on Martin's cheek again, "I'd be very thankful if you knew of a way to get out of here. I...suspect you might be better at navigating this place than myself at this point. So..do you...do you know how, now that you're...spidery?”

“I think so,” Martin glanced at their surroundings, “it’s easier to tell things in here apart now. I think I know how we can get out. No need to make a guessing game out of it.”

“I was getting...rather lost when I was looking for you. It...seems as though it gets harder to see the further along you go. I-I mean...I can guess, I can certainly guess. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have taken a while to get through this domain.”

“Figures. Christ, I hate this place.”

“Not a fan of the architecture, I’m guessing?” Jon managed a small smile, making it as teasing as he could. Martin smiled back at him, fangs and all. He pulled himself up using his extra limbs, and then pulled Jon up off the ground. Jon felt fuzzy, clawed fingers interweave with his own, and Martin gently squeezing his hand. 

“Yeah," said Martin, "I can’t stand the architecture. Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

Far away, in a monochrome circle of rainy earth, the dirt began to shift. The people in this place did not notice, because they did not see it. If they noticed, they did not care. The loose earth started to shift more, beginning to move rhythmically. The wet soil was turned up, starting to spread out around where the ground was moving. The ground now began to shift and move rapidly, as though something was underneath it, trying to escape it. The movement continued, until the loose grass and dirt began to nearly undulate as the thing underneath it scrambled underneath of it. 

A moment later, the wet earth tore open as thousands upon thousands of spiders scuttled out of the ground, moving, wave-like, across the surface of their new domain. 

**Author's Note:**

> Wuthering Heights would’ve been awesome if there were a bunch of spiders. I mean maybe there were but it's not like we heard about them. Instead I had to feel like my socks were wet the entire time reading it. 
> 
> If you read all this, thank you so much!!! I know it's heavy and I appreciate it! Here are some yeens:
> 
> My Tumblr is blackwoodesquire if you wanna follow me there! owo


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